(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Whitbread, up 3.0%. Barclays has raised the Premier Inn-owner to Overweight from Equal Weight.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Berkeley Group, down 2.4%. Goldman Sachs reduced the company's rating to Sell from Neutral.
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Standard Chartered, down 1.7%. Exane has cut the firm to Underperform from Neutral.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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FirstGroup, up 4.8%. The UK monopoly regulator is considering undertakings offered by FirstGroup and Trenitalia to address competition concerns in relation to the award of the West Coast partnership rail franchise. West Coast Rail, a joint venture between UK transport operator FirstGroup and Italian train operator Trenitalia, was awarded the West Coast rail franchise by the UK transport department in August. The Competition & Markets Authority said there are reasonable grounds to believe the undertakings offered, or a modified version of it, might be accepted.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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TalkTalk Telecom, down 4.6%. The firm swung to first-half profit and affirmed guidance for the full-year. In the six months to September 30, revenue fell 3.6% to GBP792.0 million from GBP822.0 million last year, on declining carrier revenue and the firm exiting mobile virtual network operations, a measure it announced in May 2017. The company swung to a pretax profit of GBP1.0 million from a GBP4.0 million loss last year. TalkTalk recommended an interim dividend of 1.00 pence, flat year-on-year.
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Workspace, down 3.9%. Berenberg has cut the office space owner to Sell from Hold.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Carpetright, up 15%. The retailer has agreed to a takeover from Meditor Holdings, which values the retailer at GBP15.2 million. Meditor already owns just shy 30% of the firm, and holders of the remaining Carpetright stock will receive 5p per share.
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Amerisur Resources, up 5.1%. The oil firm has agreed a GBP242 million, or 19.21 pence per share, cash takeover offer from Latin America-focused oil & gas company GeoPark. Chief Executive John Wardle said: "The transaction presents a significant opportunity for our stakeholders in Colombia and, given GeoPark's existing presence, will ensure the continuity of our partnerships in country."
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Fuller, Smith & Turner, down 4.8%. The firm has forecast annual profit to be broadly unchanged on the year prior after costs associated with the separation of its recently sold brewing business came in "materially" higher than expected. A transitional service agreement related to the sale remains in place with buyer Asahi until May 2020 and the costs associated with this deal have been "materially higher than expected". As a result adjusted pretax profit for the year ending March 28 is expected to be "broadly in line" with the GBP31 million reported the year prior. Despite this, Fuller's emphasised it continued to trade "well" with total sales from its managed estate up 5.2% for the 32 weeks to last Saturday. On a like-for-like basis, sales were 2.3% higher on the year prior.
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Veltyco, down 55%. The gaming industry marketing firm said income from an affiliate business of the Bet90 unit has missed expectations, meaning Veltyco is making a loss on a monthly basis. Veltyco has warned if trading does not meet revised expectations in the short-term, and if it can not find further funding, the business may no longer be viable.
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Bilby, down 37%. The utility has raised GBP2.0 million, placing 18.2 million new shares at a price of 11 pence each. This is a 52% discount to Bilby's closing price on Thursday in London of 23 pence, with shares at 14.45p Friday.
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Non-Standard Finance, down 18%. The lender said trading in the third quarter ended September has missed expectations due to lower volumes of guarantor loans. It expects 2019 operating profit to miss expectations. It is also increasing the probability weighting of a downside scenario to 50% due to increased uncertainty in the UK economy. NSF has cut targets in the medium-term for loan book growth. Chief Financial Officer Nick Teunon will be departing, NSF also announced, in March next year, to be replaced by his understudy Jono Gillespie.
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By George Collard; georgecollard@alliancenews.com
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